Something Like Seeing
by findingBIRDS
Summary: It is 1950, and two brothers leave their healing Germany to find a church in Northern France that was forgotten and lost in the war six years before. However, they also end up find a man of Ludwig's past, changing them forever.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.**

**Warning:** This story is mature due to the fact that it will eventually contain graphic violence and overall dark themes. No woohoo in this fanfic, sorry.

**Inspiration: **Wow, hmm. Well, I just thought this one up myself, which is probably why it's so unorganized, haha. But it was probably birthed by watching way too many old dramatic war movies.

**Author's Note:** There isn't much to say on this one. Please bear with me as I continue throwing random things in, as I have a tenancy to get off track / add more dramatic things to make the lives of the characters worse. If this happens, or if you know that I'm overdoing it, send me a hate review and I'll love you forever.

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><p><em>They walked down they cobblestone streets<em>, one taking in the sounds while the other talked and laughed. It was a sunny day in Rouen, France - Ludwig could hardly believe that he was in the same exact city that he'd been in all the way back in 1944. Though the circumstances have changed since then, his feelings had not. The same guilt and self-loathing was stabbing him like a knife to the chest, one that hadn't been removed for six long years.

Gilbert spoke rather loudly in English, not heeding the glances he got here and there as he walks besides his brother, who was walking a dog and wearing darkly shaded glasses. The German's accent was barely noticeable, but hell, he'd been talking in English nearly all his life. And anyway, speaking Germany in northern France wasn't taken very lightly after the war. It was understandable.

"Hey, where's the food for the dog? He looks hungry. I don't think he ate anything since we boarded the train." At this, the canine halted and looked at the red-eyed man curiously, tongue lolling out happily. He was used to responding to 'dog' when it came to Gilbert. As soon as Aster, the dog, halted, Ludwig stopped curtly as well. Gilbert gave Aster a small frown and let his shoulder just lightly touch his brothers before walking on, sending all three of them once again at a fair pace.

"It should all be at the hotel. The man said everything would be there for when we arrive." Ludwig's voice was low, fearing that his more prominent German accent would be detected. His brother, still talking in his mock-American sounding English, brought a hand up casually to clasp the back of his neck.

"You don't have even any snacks on you?" How strange. Little brother always made sure to bring something for the dog during walks. Perhaps he just had a lot on his mind, and rightfully so.

The taller German kept his head aligned straight ahead as he made a small grunt that meant a simple 'no'.

"Well, we should grab some food somewhere for ourselves then!" Yet again, another subject. These days, though the topics may seem meaningless, none were discussed for very long. Gilbert would say something, Ludwig would respond, and that was that. Now that Aster had resumed to his usual controlling pace, Ludwig was suddenly more certain of his direction and felt confident enough to cease the brushing of shoulders. The feel of the ground underneath his feet was broken here and there from small spaces between the cobblestones and once and a while they could nearly taste the fresh bread in the air from one of the houses above them on the second floors.

There was no need for a reply from Ludwig this time; Gilbert knew well enough that neither of them had not had breakfast nor lunch. Hence, the Prussian grew quiet as he scanned each street for some sort of cafe or diner and shoved his hand into his pocket, causing his elbow to jab into Ludwig's side. He didn't bother to apologize, and the younger of the two didn't bother to move away.

The two brothers were in France because of something that Ludwig wanted to do. Or even multiple things if the right chances arose. His initial goal was to find a church somewhere in the outskirts of Rouen. Then afterwards, after they'd accomplished that, maybe he'd decide find those who he'd made suffer in the past. The sheer thought of it seemed impossible and terrifying, but it was a honest thought at at least trying to reach out to the ones whom his kind had terrorized in the all-too recent past. The blonde was ashamed of his intentions that he'd had when he was younger. Killing, hating, discriminating. Yes, he'd been a Nazi in the World War. However, he managed escaped the fate of becoming a prisoner of war from a deed that he'd done, and that deed was perhaps one of the two good things that he'd done in his entire life.

"Luddie, found a place!"

The blonde stopped curtly and waited for a moment, knowing that it was his brother's job to check the premises. Cramped areas didn't do any good for Ludwig, and that was for sure. He seemed to stare off at nothing as the world passed him and Aster by before Gilbert popped out of the diner and tugged at his younger brother's jacket. "S'alright. Now, let's go before I start roasting the dog!"

Aster looked up at the white-haired man yet again as if expecting something. Gilbert frowned once again at the canine, sighed, and tied his leash to a thin street lamp pole right in front of the diner windows before leading his brother into the quaint place. Inside, it was very... French. The place smelt of coffee and seasoned chicken, salmon and crapes, the chairs were small and comfortable looking and all of the tables were circular. It was rather nice, actually. There weren't many people in, and unlike some of the places in France, there were no obstacles in your path to curve around except the nicely spaced out tables. It seemed to be the perfect place for Ludwig, who was now absently scratching the top of Aster's head. "I'll have a cup of coffee."

Gilbert turned to his brother and gave a brisk nod, to himself of course. Ludwig wouldn't have seen it anyways. "Want to sit next to the window?"

"Any table will be fine."

Hence, off the red-eyed man went, scanning around before leading them all to an appropriate table, near the window where Aster was clear in sight, the dog wagging his tail happily to those two passed by. The Prussian tapped on the window but was not paid attention to by the dog - Aster was too involved with the petting he was suddenly receiving by a middle-aged woman carrying a basket.

After Ludwig sat down, Gilbert rubbed his hands a bit and quickly formed their schedule for the day, not bothering to sit down himself as he thought it all over. Well, first eat, then locate that fucking impossible to find hotel that the luggage was taken to, call Elizabeta to see if things were alright, get everybody cleaned up... and then? He shrugged it off. As the rest of the day went, he'd be sure to ask around for out-of-the-way churches named Nicasius of Rheims, after some saint from the country. Though it would seem as if this was all routine, since they _had_ been trying to find this church for the last month there in France, Gilbert knew how incredibly important the whole thing was to Ludwig. Hence, as his older brother and care-taker, he was there to back him up one hundred percent. And this was by his way of letting things come to them instead of seeking things out himself. Some things were better left up to the chances.

"Bonjour! Comment puis-je vous aider?"

Spinning around, Gilbert coughed and tried to gather his bearings from the surprise. No, he didn't get frightened! Pft, that would be silly. "Ah- erm. Oh. Do you speak English?"

The waitress that had spoken before paused, pursed her lips together and answered with a "pardon?"

"I can't speak French," he admitted. The whole idea of it didn't catch on with the woman, who stood staring. "American," he added. With that, he put a thumb to his chest and slapped on a dorky grin. As if this said it all, she opened her small mouth and let an 'ohh' escape before putting a finger up, the motion telling him to wait, and quickly walking away. Assuming that someone who knew how to communicate with him was coming, Gilbert sat down and lounged in the chair. Ludwig continued staring off nowhere in particular.

"You gonna be alright?"

Ludwig nodded a bit. This didn't prevent his older brother from seeing that something was bothering him though. Oh, bothering him more than everything else was. Gilbert knew how stressful it was like for him, to be back in France and all.

"C'mon, spill it."

With a small sigh, the blonde pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose and leaned over the table to put himself in the general direction of his brother. "I need to-"

"Hello! How are you two doing today?"

The younger Beilschmidt drew back instantly and looked down at nothing in particular. "We're alright," Gilbert answered for the both of them, smiling up at the waiter as he did. The waiter looked cheerful and happy, his blue eyes lit and shoulder-length blonde hair drawn into a ponytail. One would think that he looked rather feminine if it wasn't for the stubble he sported. His red eyes didn't miss the slightly fazed expression that suddenly grew on the man's face, as if he was trying to remember something. Sort of like when someone is trying to remember the name of that person way back in grade school. However, he quickly shook it off and continued on with what he was there for.

"And what will you two be hav..." This was enough to get Gilbert's brow raised. Sure, the rare 'haven't I seen you before?' thing was fine, but when the waiter turned his attention to Ludwig, it all fell from there. The white-haired man felt confusion crash down on him when he saw what the Frenchman's face had turned into. He suddenly looked shocked, exhilarated, terrified, and all at once his hands began to shake so hard that his note pad fell to the ground.

"Hey, are you alright?" Gilbert asked, standing. Ludwig continued to stare at the ground, oblivious to everything that was happening. The restaurant's chatter continuously rolled on, not seeing the scene that was laid out before them. He was about to try to calm the waiter down, to do something, before the waiter himself stooped down closer to the other blonde and slowly slipped off his glasses, a hand lifting up the other's chin. The Frenchman's blue eyes met a different shade of blue, and the shade was more sharp and electrifying than anything else he'd ever felt before since that time six years ago in that city house in central Rouen. But there was something wrong. They didn't seem to be focused on anything at all.

Gilbert was about to cut in, to demand what was going on when Ludwig rose his face and questioned out "Gilbert?", not seeing who was in front of him. The waiter in turn stared in the same shocked way, but the trembling had subdued, and after a moment his brows furrowed in concern, confusion.

"He's blind; leave him alone!" Gilbert said, his voice snapping like a whip this time. It certainly caught attention to a few of the people that sat around them. Still, there were people at the far ends of the room that still talked and talked, not heeding the suddenly tense atmosphere.

The waiter's attention quickly reverted to Gilbert, then slowly back to Ludwig. The shock was over. Now it was just numbness. In a nearly robotic way, the Frenchman lifted the German's hand and brought it up to his face. Then, ever so slowly, he guided the other's fingers through several locks of long blonde hair. This was about enough for Gilbert, who was about to smack the strange man away, but in sudden recognition Ludwig responded to this by letting his hand slide down to cup the other's face. His breath had become reasonably shorter, and it seemed as if the shaking was contagious, because the blue-eyed German was trembling as well. He dropped his hand after a moment and tried to get up and move away, eyes wide, nostrils flaring.

For a moment, they stood. Ludwig was wide-eyed and staring off some place over the Frenchman's shoulder and the Frenchman stared more directly at Ludwig. That same numbness, Gilbert realized as he looked at the waiter. He knew that numbness. And with that, the waiter was gone. He'd let Ludwig's glasses drop on their table before clasping a hand over his mouth and leaving into one of the back rooms, as if on the verge of tears.

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><p>Bonjour! Comment puis-je vous aider? - Hello, how canmay I help you?


	2. Chapter 2

_He could remember that night clearly_, with all it's colours and everything. The heat from the fires that raged about the streets caused them all to sweat and the yells of German and Allied soldiers pierced through the walls. Ludwig was inside of a house, his agile feet taking him up the iron-spiraled stairs as the others of his unit plundered the kitchen for food. Anything edible. They hadn't eaten in days. And how could they? Everything was in a panic; the Allies had successfully broke through the beaches and were now this far inland. It was only a matter of time before they seized the entire country.

Ludwig was only sixteen. He was one of those ideal soldiers, the ones that were serious and thorough in their work. But as he ran up those flights of stairs, being alone, his heart began to pound faster and faster until it felt as if it was going to explode through his chest. And maybe from the stress it would have if it hadn't been for the abrupt ending of steps.

The corridor ahead of him was dark and cramped. For a moment, he could feel his life flash before his eyes. Living in the countryside with his father and brother. As a small child, playing with a girl next door. Gilbert moving away when the war began to southern Germany where he could more easily protest against it. Himself, being swept away in the heat and violence. Hearing when his father had been sent to Dachau for assisting those who ran from the Nazis. The not caring. In this stranger's house with fires raging all around him, it suddenly seemed so much more somber. What a sad, sad life he saw flash before those electric eyes of his. Nothing tied it together to make it all stay put, making the memories seem more like feathers atop a table on a windy day. They stay for a moment, shaking like windows as the final missile struck the city, before flying off just like the glass would.

On either wall in the corridor were rows and rows of pictures, some of people, some of pets and others of tall buildings and cathedrals. The closer you looked at them the more you could see little details that you'd think wouldn't be there in the first place. A magazine on the table about gardening, the French version of Around the World in 80 Days in someone's hand as they smiled at the camera, a woman in a factory pounding her hammer into red-hot sheet metal with a flower in her hair. And there was a family photo as well, everyone in it looking terribly different. But besides that one photo, everyone else put into picture in that hallway looked related, with the same elegantly angular face and blonde hair.

"Beeil' dich!" someone downstairs yelled, the man's strong voice cutting shrilly over the others. Ludwig flinched at the sound, and did so again when there was the sound of numerous plates shattering somewhere in the kitchen.

It was getting hotter - though there were no windows in the hallway, he knew that the flames were now licking the house's stone structure from the outside. With a sense of urgency, the German strode down the hallway and began flinging the doors open. He was suppose to be sure that the buildings were cleared, orders his lieutenant gave him. The first door lead to a bathroom, the second to a linen closet, and the third to a study room. After sticking his nose in for a moment, Ludwig shut his eyes immediately before wincing them open a bit. The window across from him was giving way to a reddish orangish haze that spilled over the walls and such an intense heat that it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He slammed the door shut like he'd gone with the others and went to the last one, glad that he'd left in time since he heard the window shatter behind the shut study door.

The last room was a bedroom. The windows weren't facing the flames so it wasn't as chaotic as the other room, but he knew that since the fire had broken into the study that there wasn't much time left. Maybe it was the uneasy silence as soon as he'd stepped in that caused him to draw his gun and cock it, suddenly aware of another presence besides himself and the roaring fires. First went the chairs, their figures sent flying as he kicked them with his metal-toed boots. Then toppled over the sofa. Still no one. Burning blue eyes ripped across the room and his hand that gripped his pistol began to itch. Then his eyes landed on a pair of closet doors. They were so large that it took him as a surprise. You'd think that something like that would be the first thing you'd notice when you entered the room. They were huge, the type that you swung open in the morning in order to get ready to great the day just to be greeted by a hall of shoes and jackets. Gripping his gun tighter, Ludwig wiped some sweat from his brow before he walked nearer and nearer to the closet.

Behind the shut doors, something creaked. That was enough for him.

As soon as he flung open the doors, a pair of hands came flying out and gripped his neck. Ludwig, surprised at the sudden attack, fell on the floor and writhed, trying to reach his hand over to shoot. This was impossible though, as his attacker's hands suddenly gripped atop his and began to struggle aiming the gun. Then, in a sudden burst of strength, his attacker swayed the gun's position to his favour. With this, Ludwig did the only thing he could do to was shoot in hopes that his fellow soldiers would hear him. So he did. But he wasn't prepared for that sudden gasp that came from the closet, where he'd shot into. The grip on his arm loosened and then was ridden of completely.

"J-...Jeanne?"

The German let his eyes adjust again. They'd gotten blurry from the blow, but when his sight became sharper, he saw the back of the man that had attacked him. The Frenchman had slowly gotten up and was standing in front of a body hidden in the darks of the closet. All Ludwig could make out of the woman were her small feet covered in silk stockings. He quickly stood when the man slowly dropped to his knees and stepped back when the Frenchman reached forward to touch the woman, his back rocking back and forth like the hiccups. From his silence, it took Ludwig a while to process that the Frenchman was actually crying. As the man's long blonde hair fell into his face from leaning over farther into the shadows, the German realized that this man didn't care if he died now. If he did, he'd still be fighting. Metal-toed boots made their way closer to the pair, not taken heed at the sudden sound of multiple men running up the flight of stairs down the hallway.

Still facing his back to Ludwig, the man drew a deep breath in and shouted, "Me tuer!" Then, turning his head so one eye glinted at the Nazi through his golden locks of hair, "me tuer avant que je me tue!"

Feeling heat burn his cheeks by the sudden show of yelling and not knowing quite what the man was saying at that, Ludwig began to whisper, "ich-" but he cut himself off. If he didn't know French, why would this man be expected to know German? He finally was close enough to hold the Frenchman's chin and lift his face up. Then, slowly, he slid his fingers up the man's cheek and let them weave through his bangs. He wasn't sure how to say sorry, but when words didn't work, maybe a look, a touch, could. Ludwig didn't mean to shoot her, he truly didn't. He honestly didn't know what he was going to do when he made it upstairs in the first place if he saw any civilians hiding out. All this fire, all this heat confused him. Deep inside, what Ludwig knew was quaint farm fields, blades of grass, the fast river that ran with quick silvery feet behind the home he left behind.

Looking down, he saw that this long-haired blonde was beautiful. He held a masculine air to him, but with his cheekbones high and lashes long, Ludwig could almost call him gorgeous.

"Wo bist du?" Someone yelled in the hallway, followed by the sound of a door being kicked open. Ludwig, taken aback by the speed of his soldiers, looked in a panicked way from the door back to the Frenchman, who didn't dare pull away from the other's caress. Drawing the gun that now seemed to be plastered onto his hand, the German did the only thing he could do. Holding onto the other's face tighter so it wouldn't move, he aimed. Those ocean-deep eyes that Ludwig couldn't take his eyes off squeezed shut as if to prepare himself. Another door was kicked open. Then, yells of 'feuer! feuer!' He cocked the gun. Those soft lips gave way to clenched teeth. Ludwig fired.

Francis opened his eyes. He felt... he felt nothing. The grip on his hair had loosened, letting him look at his side where a bullet hole smoked on the closet floor, then up to look questioningly at the soldier in front of him. __Why?__

The German thought about the pictures in the hallway. They were probably shattered or burned by now by the soldiers and fire. All of those people would wait for Francis to come home after the days of school in his childhood to the visits to parks with friends, undoubtedly. But who did Ludwig have to wait for him to come home? A father who was probably dead by now. A brother who fought against what he worked so hard for, a brother who probably hated him. After all, Gilbert had a Nazi for a brother. How disgusting fate was.

_If you go, you'll leave someone waiting._

The footsteps were now at the bedroom's very doorstep. Two shots had been fired, but only one struck and killed. But the others didn't need to know about the other that hadn't, or they'd finish it themselves. Ludwig turned his gun so the barrel was in his hands and hit the Frenchman over the head with the handle, sending him tumbling to the floor. As long locks of blonde hair slid through his fingers and fluttered down, a soldier busted the bedroom door open and looked around until he spotted his fellow German and the two bodies at his feet. "Ludwig, lasst uns gehen!"

Ludwig knew that the man he saved would get out of the house alive. The building was burning and the closet was nothing but a dead end, a death trap. But he'd get out - and in fact, Francis did.

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><p>"God dammit Ludwig!" The door slammed behind the two men, causing Aster to bark. "Just tell me what all of that was!"<p>

They were at the hotel now after having left the cafe immediately after the confrontation and spend a full half our of searching for it. The streets of Rouen were confusing. They weren't wide like the ones back in Hesse, Germany, where fields and trees were littered along the sides of the roads. And all while they were searching for it, Gilbert persisted and begged his little brother to tell him what was going on to no avail. Now that they were in private however, the red-eyed German freely expressed his frustration with the whole situation.

"I'm in this, too! We're looking for the same thing together!"

"Schnauze! I just need to think!" Ludwig yelled back. Gilbert's mouth immediately snapped shut, surprised at his brother's sudden anger. He watched as the blonde leaned down and unsnapped the leash from Aster's collar, who kept put at his owner's side. After running a hand through his hair, he let out a deep sigh. "I'm sorry."

The older of the two swallowed. "I'm sorry too." A silence met the two. When they got upset at each other they always soothed things out by forgetting that it ever happened. After an hour or two Gilbert would trot along and start up a conversation as if no fight between them ever occurred. It was probably better to talk things out, but they never seemed to. And that was what the white-haired German was about to do, just let it all slip between the cracks, but all of it seemed too important to loose. "Would you like to talk about it during dinner?"

Ludwig gave a short nod that was directed to nothing in particular since his head still kept straight ahead of him, but Gilbert knew it was for him. He let his hand wrap around his brother's as they then proceeded to make their way through the hotel room. The blonde ran his hands over things to gain familiarity with his surroundings as the other explained where they were, such as the hallway or closet. He could feel the warmth of sunlight beam against his skin in many places - there must have been many windows. And there were. The view was gorgeous as well, but it wasn't like that mattered. After they finally made it to the bathroom, Ludwig paused and planted his feet atop the tiles. "I need to use the W.C."

_"C'mon, spill it."_

_With a small sigh, Ludwig had pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose and leaned over the table. "I need to-"_

So that's what he'd wanted. But thirty minutes ago? _That's a long time to hold it in_, Gilbert thought to himself before aligning his brother in front of the toilet and slipping behind him. This was how it always was. As his big brother, Gilbert had given up most of his life to take care of his brother. From walking beside him on the street to helping do such a simple thing such as relieving himself, he was there to help Ludwig accomplish it. Being blind was something terrible to live with, especially when you were someone who knew what it was like to look at things in the past. But then again, Gilbert and Ludwig had a sort of blind trust that bound them together, no pun intended. Ludwig could count on his big brother, and his big brother could count on him if he ever needed to vent or talk about things. However, there were some exceptions to this.

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><p>Gilbert watched his brother carefully from across the table as he ate. The blonde would pick at his plate with a fork before he felt some resistance between the metal the metal. Then, with that, it went into his mouth. Aster laid comfortably on one of the twin beds behind them.<p>

The older Beilschmidt had been sure to take care of everything before dinner. He'd gotten himself and Ludwig washed up by taking a shower together, fed the dog, unpacked everything and called room service for dinner. All while he did so he'd answer to Ludwig's numerous questions of 'where am I now?'. You see, the blonde would walk around new places and touch things, growing accustomed to his surroundings, and if he was unsure of what room he was in he'd just ask his older brother. Gilbert didn't know why though - the first tour seemed to be the only one needed in order for his younger brother to have a general idea of where he was going. The white-haired knew that there was something that he was forgetting as he sat at the dinner table, staring at Ludwig, but for now it would have to wait. Ludwig had agreed to tell him what was up during dinner, so that's what would happen. Ludwig never went against his word.

Gilbert hummed a bit before shoving a mouthful of salad in his mouth. French food never disappointed him. "It's good."

"It is." Silence. Then, in a soft and slow voice, "we met six years ago."

Gilbert stopped eating and folded his hands next to his plate on the table. How strange, for Ludwig to see someone again that he saw during the war. He had no idea how important the meeting was between the Frenchman and veteran German, but eventually he would. All he knew now was that it was something that pained his brother greatly, or so it seemed.

"We were in his house restocking and I was sent out to scout around and see if there were any people in the premises."

Leaning over the table, Gilbert put a hand on his brother's arm to comfort him. He knew that since he couldn't see, everything was worked through touch, smell, taste and hearing. And since this didn't seem to be the time to talk, he decided to use the touch tactic. _I'm here. I'm paying attention, _the small gesture said. And Ludwig seemed to appreciate this with being able to sink into his wooden chair more comfortably.

"When I'd gotten upstairs, he took me by surprise and we ended up fighting for the gun on the floor, so I fired, but it hit a woman hidden somewhere..." he trailed off, mouth bent in a frown, mind obviously floating off to something completely different. About thirty seconds passed before Gilbert squeezed his brother's arm in order to get him back. "Ah, sorry. The soldiers downstairs came up to see what had happened, but the fire was about to burn down the house by then so we had to leave."

This got the Prussian to raise a brow. That didn't make sense. "Then what about the other guy?"

"I... shot the floor, and then knocked him out with the handle of my gun, so the others would think that I'd killed him."

And so, Gilbert became confused. Was that it? Then wouldn't the Frenchman have leapt into Ludwig's arms, thanking him over and over for saving his life instead of looking like he was about to have a nervous breakdown? And what about the face touching? And Ludwig himself looked like he'd just seen a puppy get shot! He tried to be understanding for his little brother's sake, he really did, but this was out of whack. "...Yes?"

The blonde blinked, not understanding that his brother was as confused as he was. "Well, I don't know," he answered defensively, but his voice suddenly became accusing, the fire in his blue eyes unknowingly igniting. "Things like that just bring back other memories. But you wouldn't know that. You were back in Germany during the war!" He was eager to change th subject, to turn the conversation into something else. Ludwig didn't want to explain the fear, the joy that he'd felt at the restaurant. It felt so real. But the German didn't know if it was right.

Gilbert removed his hand quickly from his brother's arm. "Because I was trying to help out people as they suffered at home! Yeah, I _did_ stay in Germany! And you know how hard I tried to help, too!"

Ludwig suddenly dropped his fork and grimaced at the act. The utensil had slipped from his loose grasp - holding a knife with four fingers wasn't easy. But it was what he had to deal with. His right hand had lost a ring finger, and his left was absent of a pointer.

"I remembered the fire in the restaurant, the bodies in the streets and explosions of Allied bombs. Yes, I was glad to see that he was still alive, but everything else that I remember from back then... it me. You don't know is what it's like to see a man leaned up on the top of a set of stairs bleeding down the steps from a leg that's half gone, whispering prayers and clutching onto a photo of his wife and children. You don't know, Gilbert." He shook his head and pawed around for his fork again, fine with eating after such a detailed description of death and loss.

This was another thing that constantly happened. Gilbert knew that he couldn't connect on the level that he knew he needed to with his brother. Instead, they were always fighting about who knew what and morals and what was just. "You never said good-bye to father. You don't know how much that messed him up."

A fork stabbed aimlessly into an empty plate, then again, then a third time.

"No more food," Gilbert said, his voice now in a whisper. It killed him, how it looked like his brother didn't care. He wanted to rattle him and scream on the top of his lungs, 'why don't you feel like you used to?' But no, no. He believed that it was his duty to Ludwig to stay with him as a servant, as a crutch, so it was impossible to do such a thing. Maybe after they found this church that he'd heard all those stories about, things would begin to turn back to normal, like back when they would cast wires tied on wooden sticks into their river behind the house to try to catch fish on a sunny day. Not in the mood to talk any longer, the Prussian quickly finished his dinner and called room service up to clear the plates before he stepped out into the hallway and leaned his back up against the wall. Then he remembered. He needed to call Elizabeta.

Back in the war he'd met a beautiful woman at a bar, her skirts in layers and hair pulled up in an elegant twist. After one glance and hearing her hearty laugh, Gilbert knew that this beautiful brunette was the woman that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. So he tried to make this happen, first by making a rather bold advance. It earned him a bleeding forehead from being punched in the face and hitting his head on the floor when he fell from the bloe. The second time was more subtle and slightly endearing, him with his bandage half around his face and words that were meant to sound smooth but came out rather dorky. And after the third try, he'd gained many bits and pieces of information about her. First, though she was only seventeen, she'd already been divorced once. Her name was Elizabeta Héderváry and was one of a certain prestige that was given to her by her family name. And lastly, she was the type of woman that blew in like a hurricane; she'd just began working in southern Germany to take a part in the war resistance three weeks earlier and was already the most talked about lady in town.

Tanzende Stiefel, the bar that Elizabeta had worked at, quickly became "the place" to get a beer and a nice view of an even nicer rack behind the clean counters in the front. Eventually, from all of Gilbert's attempts and crazy antics of 'German charm' as he (inaccurately) called it, he won Fair Lady's heart and lived happily ever after.

Or that was, until a month after the war had ended when Ludwig came home with bandaged hands and eyes along a mind that had been broken by the hell of war. Since that first meeting with Ludwig after he'd returned home Gilbert was there for his brother and only his brother, despite the increasingly serious relationship he maintained with Elizabeta. When he finally lured out how Ludwig had come back in such bad shape from the blonde's own mouth, it was decided there and then that they were to find the Church of Nicasius of Rheims, despite any hardships that they may have faced. And it turned out that there were many hurdles strewn between the two brothers, all of which were made up of what was described earlier - not understanding.

Inside of the hotel room, Ludwig felt no remorse whatsoever. And how could he? His father was the furthest thing from his mind, though selfish it may seem. The images that were burned into the sides of his mind from the war were still fresh and vivid. They were the only things that he could look back on and see what he'd seen years back with his own two eyes. Six years isn't very long, no matter what people say. He remembered the men who he'd fought with and eventually died with. They died together. But not in a physical way, of course not. They died in a much more terrible way, one that left them begging for death itself in the raw. There was no forgetting the men falling as they charged the lines or the pictures they found on Allied bodies. Some laughed, some stayed silent, but Ludwig kept moving to keep his mind off of it altogether. A perfect, ideal soldier he was. Funny, how now it seemed like he could never be anything else but a soldier. He continued to fight against the one who cared for him, against the fact that his father was dead. Hell, he believed that the world was nothing but a hellhole. How can such a person go through life then? you may wonder.

Ludwig had someone who he'd thought about constantly. It was a small, dim hope, but it was there. It was a folded picture at the bottom of his suit case and a memory lined with fire and yells of German words down the photo-lined corridor. Now in the room by himself - oh, how long it was since he was truly by himself - he could only now feel the small wisps of hair running through his fingers, the trembling hand that wrung his palm loosely as it guided him somewhere where one could dream without a care. The man he saved, no, the person he saved, was _alive_, and Ludwig knew that his person was just as beautiful as before, with long lashes and silky hair, even without his sight. His person wasn't someone that was defined by gender or nationality. His person was gorgeous and had deep blue eyes, like a spot of sky through smoke on the day when it rained over Rouen and put the fire out.

* * *

><p>Beeil' dich - Hurry up<br>(Me tuer) avant que je me tue - (Kill me) before I kill myself  
>Wo bist du - Where are you<br>Feuer - Fire  
>Lasst uns gehen - Let's go<br>Schnauze - Shut up  
>Tanzen Stiefel - Dancing Boots<p>

Excuse any mistakes I made in my German or French - I certainly am not fluent in either. Hence, corrections will be accepted more than gratefully.


	3. Chapter 3

_Ludwig and his company were out in the French countryside_, a few miles away from the border of Germany. The Allies had regained the France, but even so a weak Nazi resistance still lingered. It had been a few months since they moved out of Rouen and the blonde had since then turned seventeen, but even as he stood amidst fields of grass and trees that surrounded the ruined town they resided in, everything that happened in the great French city seemed so vivid that it was what he could get a grip on the most, unlike the quiet reality that surrounded him now. He'd replayed what happened in his mind countless times - strolling through rows of burnt and collapsed buildings, feeling the fire pierce his flesh as they shot at their enemies from crumbling cover and shooting the bedroom floor when he had perfect aim at what was suppose to be his target. Ludwig didn't know why his decisions came so naturally at that moment, but the fact was that it happened. There was nothing he could do but desperately attempt to forget as he tried his best to serve his country and follow a cause that suddenly seemed vague and wrong.

The man was standing atop the bell tower, his feet taking him back and forth as his blue eyes flickered across the land below. Somewhere at the edge of town was a scream, then a gunshot. The silence afterwards was deafening.

This town probably was cheerful and lively before the war, surrounded by a tall wood and half-way surrounded by creaks and small rivers. The name of the small town? Who knew. When the Germans decided to set up a communications post in the seemingly deserted place, the bodies that littered the now grimy streets made it obvious that the town hosted a battle perhaps even weeks before their arrival.

After taking a moment of silent recognition for the lost life, the boot began to click once again against the wooden panels below them, continuing on at a more steady pace than before. Ludwig couldn't have known how much the two new shaking screams would affect his life as they split through the air, fresh and new against the ringing shot and rotting streets that preluded what was to be his last straw, which would slip from his fingertips so near the end of the war. He could already feel it closing in on him. The Germany as he knew it was soon to be lost and the governments that casted down hard stares at their dying people in the streets below would be gone with it. In all honesty, he wasn't sure how he felt about this. Would it... would it be a good thing? The change, the adapting, while his people have already gone through so much? Were they all strong enough?

When he was relieved of duty, Ludwig went to the loft of a bank building where the soldiers were to rest and was told three things - first, Aachen had been captured by the Allies. Second, an entire platoon of American soldiers were rallied in another nearby town equally as small as the one they were in - though they were not aware of the Nazi presence, if the Germans didn't lie low they could be smashed by such a tremendous embodiment of strength. Third, the two yells that he'd heard were from two women, one of which was next door while the other was still in the process of being forcefully dragged into the building. The latter seemed nearly grimmer than the first and second bit of information combined, and it also explained the heated moans and equally loud sobs that rang from the other side of the wall that he tried to stay furthest away from. Despite the dull understanding of his fellow young soldier's condition, worn and tired from fighting, it sickened him that the two women were subjected to being raped by those they'd feared the most since when the war started.

"Ludwig," someone called from behind. The blonde stopped unlacing his shoes - he was sitting on the edge of his makeshift cot, ready to get some shuteye. It was already dark. The thuds on the wall continued at a violent, uneven pace.

Already knowing who it was, the tall German didn't bother to turn around. He did however stiffen noticeably. "Ja?"

"You can go next," the other solder said, a smirk on his face as he gestured to the wall. "It's free until she burns out."

Ludwig only looked over at the light-haired man. His name was Mathias Køhler, a man of Danish descent, and he was perhaps the only man in the entire troop that the German thought was as good as dirt. Mathias was one of the men who would go around after a battle well won and check the dead soldier's teeth to see if they had gold caps. If they did? A tooth got pulled, much to Ludwig's disgust. Even wallets and journals were taken and fiddled through to for money before cast along the side of the street. The man seemed to have no sense of morals, something that Ludwig strongly believed in. Everyone should have their own set of morals to follow.

"Burns out?" he asked wearily before slowly continuing to unlace his boot laces. Mathias always spoke English to Ludwig since they were both one of the very few soldiers who knew the language. And just because of this, the light-haired man always cloyingly pretended that they were best friends of some sort. Only heaven knew why he tried insisted on rubbing the serious German the wrong way - the man knew how much the whole concept of friendship with the him disagreed with Ludwig.

With a kick of his legs, Mathias's boots fell atop a small table that was level with Ludwig's head, the latter of who sat on the floor. That signature lounging position of his again. "Burns out? Starves? Dies?" He rose a brow at Ludwig who only grimaced in return.

Where did he learn all that slang from anyway?

"You all are lucky that I haven't considered telling the lieutenant about this." Orders were orders. Any civilians found alive were to be shot. The Beilschmidt felt less than enthusiastic about the policy since his stay in Rouen, but what could he do? Have the poor civilians killed? This way, if the poor woman held through, they might have a chance of survival. Better chained to a bed than chained to death.

"You wouldn't." Then, with that arrogant smile, "you'll see the light one day. She's a dandy lady too. Looks like you. Hair and eyes and everything."

"Oh?" Ludwig replied, only half paying attention now as he turned his back to fold his jacket and place it neatly on the floor. The little fact didn't come as anything of interest to him until the next day when he secretly came over with his dinner into the room next door, the food untouched and solely meant for the nibbles of women's teeth. He opened the door and the shadows slammed themselves against the walls as if blown away by a great fan, letting his electric blue eyes fall upon the slightly plump and stretched girth of a woman's body, said woman looking warily at the newcomer. Her naked back was faced to him and her neck craned an angular face in his direction rebelliously, but Ludwig's mind let the venomous hiss of French warnings slip past him as he realized that the woman didn't look anything like himself at all. She looked like the man in Rouen.

However, there was one obvious difference than what had happened in Rouen - her companion was very much alive, and said companion stayed alive as well. Between the woman's shivering bare arms was cradled a girl - a child at that, her blonde hair cut short and eyes squeezed shut. Unlike the obviously older blonde that seemed to attempt to shield her from the cold and dust and dull stench of rotting wood in the nude, she was clothed in flimsy undergarments that were much too big for her, a hem torn here and there. At the sight of the youth Ludwig winced, teeth gritted behind pink lips. _Why to a child? Why would they? _

The door slowly shut, and with much hesitation he made his way around the edges of the room, trying to portray the fact that he was not there to satisfy his own clenching desires, but instead to help. He drew the curtains open and stepped back as dim light from a clear sky shot as hard as bullets onto the age-worn wooden floor. The room was in the second story of the building, so they didn't need to worry about anyone looking through the window to view the pair of under-dressed ladies.

"Qu'est-ce que vous voulez?" a shuddery voice breathed, young but mature and subtly strong. And how strong the woman was, especially under such circumstances. The youth next to her began to weep, memories of the night before that seared her adolescent mind inspiring fear in her ever beating heart, but all the older woman did was gather the girl further in her arms and stare more furiously at the soldier.

Ludwig looked down at the poor women. At this angle he got a much better view at the girl - her fair skin bore bruises and grime from the filthy floor beneath them and who knows what else, and her shoulder blades jutted out as she stiffly clung onto the Monégasque who looked just as bad - possibly worse - and sobbed with her face buried away from the new light that fluttered into the room. He tried a "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?", but this only inspired a fiery glare from the woman and a choking sound from the younger. They obviously had enough of hearing German.

"Do you speak English?" he tried again, mind set on helping. Despite the fact that the younger lady continued to cry, the other looked up abruptly with a spark of recognition and wariness. She slowly nodded. Ludwig felt hope bubble in his chest.

"I'm Ludwig Beilschmidt."

"My name is... Alys Loisel." Wrapping her arms more fully around the girl, she added, "and she is Heidi Zwingli." Though Alys was still apparently wary of the man, she finally broke her stare from him to look around purposefully. The German wondered what she could possibly be looking for until she quickly stretched herself to her right - away from Ludwig - and grabbed something off the floor. Glasses. How the Monégasque grimaced at the scratches both lenses bore until finally she shoved them on. It was only when they were put on when she suddenly seemed aware of how bare she was everywhere else and showed it by clapping her thighs closed as much as possible, despite how Heidi clung for dear life on her front side, and Ludwig suddenly felt himself grow flustered at how he even looked at her while she was in such an indecent state.

However, being the kind and efficient man he was, Ludwig unbuttoned his coat and wrapped it firmly around the lady's shoulders. It was big enough to wrap around the both of them, and as soon as Alys realized this she took advantage of it. Then, the meal - he knelt down and stuck the dish out with a hand before added, "food. For you."

* * *

><p>"We saw some street performers the other day too, accordions and everything."<p>

"How lovely! So it really is that nice in France?"

Red eyes flashed across what the window held - a skyline of vast buildings and people as small as rabbits bouncing about the sidewalks. "It's great Elizabeta, real great."

"How is Ludwig?"

Pause. Then, "the same. He's fine." The younger Beilschmidt began rousing from his bed behind the Prussian as if awoken by the white lie as soon as it was said.

Gilbert could hear the smile on her lips now. "I hope you are feeding him well." It was strange, how the Hungarian woman took such a liking to his brother. "And are the both of you getting enough sleep?"

"Put a sock in it Mother, everything is under control." His sides bounced lightly as mirth swelled his chest and spilled out his mouth, and all too soon he forgot the subject of his brother.

"Just making sure." The woman on the other side of the phone said humorously before slowly letting out a deep breath, subconsciously causing Gilbert to do the same. Being apart from each other for so long didn't do much good for their relationship. Elizabeta had her moments when she snarled about how unfair this all was, Ludwig keeping them apart. But eventually her heart would shed it's rage and reform it's former gentleness, causing her to try and make emends to what she'd said wrong - Gilbert knew well enough that her words when influenced by anger carried no meaning when she spat about the blind and weak, but the younger Beilschmidt took every rise of her voice at heart. People didn't know just how self-conscious he was because his disability.

For a moment they kept the line silent, the buzz in the background saying much more than words ever could. Each soft take of breath and exhale of air repeated _I miss you, I miss you. _And for a moment, the Prussian felt all of his anxiety peel from his skin as if he was a shedding snake, freed from the stresses of keeping his brother safe and alive.

"Oh!" The white-haired man almost jumped at the exclamation, obviously taken by surprise. "Don't leave Rouen for about another week, you hear? I'm sending something special, so it won't help if you keep jumping from hotel to hotel!"

It was now the man's turn to round his lips to accompany a small 'oh?' that flew from his mouth. "Something awesome, I hope!"

"Mhm, something awesome - I promise!"

Behind him, Gilbert could faintly hear the socked feet of his brother slowly flee to the bathroom. However, they stopped and gave way to a "grüß sie von mir".

"Elizabeta, bruder says hello."

"Tell him I said hello back!" Then, in a quieter voice, "szeretlek."

Smiling faintly, he whispered back, "ich liebe dich." And with that, he waited silently for the Hungarian woman to hang up before he followed in suit. After a small sigh, Gilbert rubbed the back of his neck with the warm-skinned hand that had held the telephone and began to dial room service for breakfast.

It was two days ago when the two Beilschmidt brothers encountered the Frenchman at the cafe. Gilbert had asked why it wouldn't have been better to go the day after, but he soon realized as the day dragged on that Ludwig was in no shape to do so. Though in a much lesser extent, it was as if his little brother was reliving his short years in the war on that long day. But even so, the blonde insisted that he didn't think that the man would be ready yet. In all honesty, after recalling the face that the Frenchman had pulled, Gilbert wasn't surprised. It was hard to be surprised by anything nowadays anyhow.

From all the time that the white-haired man had invested on his sibling, he began to wear down and in all the subtle ways to act more grown up. It was almost melancholy, actually. While sitting with his brother he might find himself transfixed and at awe at the wall to his side, thinking about that all that was, all that may have been if the war hadn't started. Surely, some good did happen because of the war. He'd met Elizabeta. But it was at the cost of millions, along with the added numbers of Father and a certain Ludwig.

In Gilbert's eyes, Ludwig was very dead. His brother didn't feel like he used to.

* * *

><p>"Coffee, right?"<p>

"Hrm."

Gilbert took the mumble as a yes and proceeded to beckon a passing waiter, who turned and whipped out a small notepad. They only needed coffee - after all, the two men weren't there to test out more French cuisine. They wanted something else.

"Oui, monsieur?"

"Coffee." Scratching his cheek, the Prussian winced before quickly replacing his English with poorly pronounced French. "Café, s'il vous plait. Deux."

After a quick nod, off the sure-footed man went, his polished shoes bearing a brightly glared light at their toes from the bright bulbs above. As soon as he took his leave, Gilbert more attentively peered at the working staff of the cafe that happened to pass by or linger within his sight at the corner of the room, set on looking for the man from before.

Ludwig seemed as nervous as ever between obsessively pushing his black-lensed glasses further up the bridge of his nose as if he wanted to shove them fully into his forehead and blatantly ignoring Aster from the fact that his own pestering thoughts captured his attention more than the fuzzy chin that rested atop his knee. It certainly wasn't expected when, instead of being dressed up in work attire, the man Gilbert was looking for turned up right in front of him with a coffee steaming in his hand.

The man blinked.

Gilbert blinked back. "Would you like to sit down?"

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry." A chair was pulled out from a vacant table nearby and placed in an empty space across from a certain tall German that seemed to stare at the table, tense and quiet. Then, slow and quiet, "I'm Francis Bonnefoy."

Gilbert was about to reply for both himself and his brother, but Ludwig said it before he managed to. "I am Ludwig Beilschmidt, and this is my brother Gilbert."

If only Ludwig could have seen Francis's smile. It was gentle and sweet, and it oddly reminded the Prussian about his mother when he was but a small child. His younger brother wouldn't remember since he'd hit his head one day a year after she died and lost his memory, but he was young enough still to forge his life as if he'd never been touched by her. It was a shame - she was such fair a lady, unique and cultured in her prestigious ways. And yet she settled for a mere farmer, one that she happened to fall terribly in love with. What a grand woman she'd been.

"Ludwig," the Frenchman said, and Gilbert eyed the other carefully as a lithe hand took the other blonde's. "Thank you."

And just like that, as if the angels themselves had clasped their hands over Ludwig's face, eyes, mind, heart and saved him of his sorrows, he looked happy. Free. The Prussian's eyes widened a bit, surprised - beyond surprised - but glad. Maybe this was what his little brother needed, a line of thankfulness, the relief of realizing that another in his thoughts was still yet alive and well.

Though Gilbert and Ludwig did not tell Francis quite yet why they were searching for such a place, the angular-faced blonde agreed to take them to the church of Nicasius of Rheims since he knew what town it was in. The Paris-born man told them that he'd traveled all around France as a child with relatives, and as they talked and drank the local coffee, Gilbert grew fond of his new friend. Francis told them about how he took the day off and stopped by the cafe in hopes that they'd come back, and he then spoke to them about himself, his job, his life before the war. The albino couldn't help but notice how the other steered clear of the war and how he managed after up until now - he talked freely of the present - but Gilbert did not mention it. Such topics were not fit in the presence of gossiping gloved women and quaint cafe tables covered over with red and white checkered sheets.

It was there and then, as Francis took a small sip of coffee and asked how long the two had already been in France, when the Prussian felt something hit him. He recognized the Frenchman. He knew for sure that he didn't see the man before him in person until now, but he held a striking resemblance to... someone. Gilbert couldn't seem to wrap his fingers around it, but he calmed himself down and reminded himself that he had plenty of time to remember.

Ludwig shifted, pawing around the top of the table for his cup of coffee, and answered the other's question of how they'd stumbled upon the cafe. The older Beilschmidt didn't miss how Francis' eyes widened when he realized that the blonde German was missing two digits of ten on his hands, and he frowned, the red-eyed man disapproving of the reaction, no matter how many times he'd seen it. Plenty of people were missing fingers this day in age, was it so important? And wouldn't have the blonde that sat across from him noticed it the first time when he put his little bruder's hands all over his face? It was strange, how crabby Gilbert suddenly felt, but perhaps it was because of the fact that he was just _that close_ to remembering where he'd seen Francis before it slipped from him. But it would come to him, it had to. The albino let a small yawn escape his jaws and distantly looked at the tiled floors, wondering if it was such a good idea to go to the church in the first place. Ludwig's two saviors might be dead.

* * *

><p>Mathias Køhler = Denmark<br>Alys Loisel = Monaco  
>Heidi Zwingli = Liechtenstein<p>

Qu'est-ce que vous voulez? - What do you want?  
>Sprechen Sie Deutsch? - Do you speak German?<br>Grüß sie von mir - Say hello for me  
>Szeretlek - I love you<br>Ich liebe dich - I love you  
>Café, s'il vous plait. Deux. - Coffee, please. Two.<p>

As you all may have noticed, nobody (except maybe Denmark) is acting in character at all at this point of the story. However, they'll come around (I hope) so don't look so glum and please don't throw anything at me.


	4. Chapter 4

Thank you **Artemis1000 **for the reviews, they've meant a lot to me! I hope you enjoy the story as it progresses.

I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to update this. I'd throw out a few excuses out there, but I really have none. My apologies.

* * *

><p><em>It was after several restless nights<em>, days that passed by all too slowly, that Ludwig finally managed to conjure up a plan to save Alys and Heidi from their fate. It was stupid, idiotic. Impossible. It could have gotten him killed. And in the end it worked, for the most part. The two woman were spirited away from their musty room, what had been their living space since they were taken, and the German remained alive. But even six years afterwards, though he knew that he was fighting for the wrong things, that it went against his morals, he still couldn't seem to forgive himself for causing the demise of nearly his entire company. But he couldn't have known that his plan would take such a turn for the worst as he slipped away from the make-shift barracks into the yonder beyond.

In broad daylight, when his shift from the post was over and communication wires were nearly finished being ran over the border for the sake of being able to transmit the status of how many other platoons managed to pull out of France, Ludwig quietly made his way out of the small abandoned town. He knew that there would be another company of soldiers coming in from a full, static-filled message they'd received the day before, so he could no longer prolong his plan. At the time there seemed to be no other way. If he waited, more soldiers would come in, and the women most definitely be shot. But no matter what he'd heard about the Americans, they were fighting for the right thing, so how could they decline his request? Because he was doing the right thing as well. _Right?_

His boots carried him through the undergrowth, carefully avoiding the main trails, and his fingers wove around thin bush branches to brush away the foliage. Beyond, basking atop a gently slanted hill, sat a town that seemed as still as death. A bell tower stood in the middle like a finger pointing up towards the clouds, and even from such a distance he could tell that it was crumbling, already wearing away. Ludwig thought of what would happen to him if he was caught doing this by his side, and for a tiny second he almost turned tail to escape doing such a thing. But focusing on the resolve that he had come to that very morning, he knelt down and kept his eyes on the track that ran right along the forest. He tried to forget that only in a few days his company would be heading back home.

The plan he had thought up was a simple one. It took a lot of luck, and there were so many chances of him being injured that it showed just how desperate he was to save the two women. He sat behind the bushes at the edge of the forest, looking for any American soldiers on patrol. If there were more than one he'd have kept hidden, but if there was a single soldier walking down the path he'd confront them. Not by jumping out in the middle of the trail, of course, but rather by calling out and talking to the other man while still out of sight before he was at least mildly trusted. Ludwig knew that in the first instant of his voice being heard he had a chance of being shot, but to him, this seemed to be his last opportunity, so he knew that he had to take it.

A good hour trickled past, and still no sign of any movement.

Then two.

The German had since then sat himself on the leafy ground, knees hurting from kneeling so long. Besides a small amount of scuffling mice and rabbits in the underbrush, everything had gone placid since the dead leaves crunched under his bottom from sitting. His surroundings were almost peaceful, and he watching the shadows shift as the sun walked and long, wild countryside grass dance like music-box ballerinas But even so, Ludwig was tired and bored, thinking of going back, before he spared another look towards the town, then down the trail. A pair of electric blue eyes widened as down the path came a soldier, the man's figure tiny in the distance, and not before long he could hear his enemy softly singing as he kicked branches out of his way. The song was vaguely familiar, one that he'd hear on the radio sometimes.

_"He puts the boys to sleep with boogie every night_  
><em>And wakes 'em up the same way in the early bright<em>  
><em>They clap their hands and stamp their feet<em>  
><em>Because they know how he plays when someone gives him a beat<em>  
><em>He really breaks it up when he plays reveille<em>  
><em>He's boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B!"<em>

The American, now so close that Ludwig could see his blue eyes, his blonde hair, snapped his fingers four times at the end of the sing and started up right at the beginning all over again. He was low-ranking from the looks of his uniform, which looked nothing more than a standard G.I. outfit, and the way that the young man's voice projected so clearly made the hidden German want to bolt out right then and there. He couldn't even fathom why someone would be singing out on patrol, away from the rest of the other men, by himself. That was like a criminal shooting a flare in the middle of a city, screaming _"I'm right here!" _But either way, this was luck in it's purest. Ludwig already knew it was a miracle that he caught sight of only one secluded soldier, so he wouldn't press it further. A few brief seconds were waited out as the singing, bumbling American continued down the path, until Ludwig stood from the bushes and walked into the middle of the trail.

"Halt."

And halt the American did. The singing ceased immediately, his feet came to a stop, but his hand did not. The young man's fingers floated towards his belt, but Ludwig, obviously not wanting a confrontation such as the one this other man was expecting, withdrew his gun and cocked it. The noise of the weapon did enough to cause the American to stop his arm from moving further.

Ludwig was sweating now. He could feel it coming on, the tension, the nervousness. He'd never felt this way before in the middle of a battlefield - so why now? Maybe because it seemed like now more than ever it all depended on something important. And either way, he didn't want to kill this man, though he probably would have if the circumstances were different, if they were somewhere else indeed in the middle if a battlefield. "Turn around slowly."

When the man turned, the German paused and tried to lick the dryness from his lips. The man was incredibly young-looking, eyes widen and pupils drawn in fear. From where Ludwig was standing he could see the man's right hand shaking, the one next to his holster. If the American drew the gun and shot - even if it didn't hit him - he'd be done for. The rest of the men in that town on the hill would come pouring down like boiling water from a pan. "Throw your gun over there," he said, lifting his hand to aim more precisely. The American followed his instructions carefully, first pulling his gun out and looking at it for a moment before tossing it on the side of the path.

An instant later a sort of resolve came over his face. The young man's royal brows furrowed, his eyes narrowed, and he said, "Alfred F. Jones, 474th infantry." He lifted his chin a bit, shifted a bit so that his left leg moved a bit farther from his right, and he added, "that's all you're gonna get outta me, ya' dirty Kraut." At that, Ludwig winced and tried to process what Alfred had said last. What kind of accent was that? Southern, was it? He uncocked his gun and lowered it a bit, still cautious but not wanting to point it at the man any longer.

"I need to ask you a favour." Ludwig was stared so strangely that he decided to keep going before things started to seem even more suspicious. "I know the location of two women, and they are in need of assistance." His mouth still felt dry. "They have nowhere to go."

Alfred took a step back. "What is this?"

"..."

"No. What sorta sick joke is this?"

"It is not a joke, I assure you."

Seconds trickled past, and for a moment Ludwig was sure that the other would yell something else, but after such a drag of silence his voice seemed to lower. "You're lying. Why should I even trust ya?"

"It's true, I assure you. There is a town not far from here, just through these woods. My platoon has just set base there," at this Alfred's eyes widened, and his teeth gritted visibly underneath his lips as well, "and when we arrived the general population was already diseased, other than the two women that we found." He didn't mention the other man that had been with them as well, the one that was killed by the gunshot he heard in the tower. Ludwig heard about that man later briefly after being told to pile the body with the rest on the outskirts of the village. _'Tried to fend us off with half a broken broom or something,'_ they said. _'That boy didn't stand a chance.'_

A pair of blue eyes, a bit darker than his and now even darker from a shade of doubt, examined him. the German could tell that the other blonde was thinking about the concentration of Germans straight through the forest. But he would understand, right? He was fighting for the right thing, and all Ludwig wanted to do was do something right too. "Are they safe? Are they being treated well?"

Ludwig shook his head.

Alfred drew in a long, shaky breath. They stood there as if they were in a stand-off, each man thinking out his own worries, sorrows, ideas, until the American opened his mouth to speak. "I don't trust you," he said. His eyes narrowed. "But... if there are woman in need of rescuing..." He fell silent again and winced, obviously battling with himself in his mind. "If I meet you here again tonight, maybe a little farther back behind those bushes, and if you bring them here, I could take them off your hands."

"It has to be closer than that," replied Ludwig, frowning. "They won't be able to walk this far." Chancing a glance at the forest, since he still didn't trust Alfred out of his sight, he added, "if you cut straight from here you will eventually find a trail. Go left on it and keep walking until you find..." What was there to possibly mark the path? He couldn't leave his gun there, nor his helmet.

Wait, his helmet. An idea struck him. He took off his helmet, looked inside of it, and pulled out a photo that was tucked in the corners. Then, he lifted it at Alfred so that he could take a look. It was a family photo, everyone in it looking terribly different. The bottom was burned, causing black to dust the tips of his fingers. "Until you find a tree with this on it. Be there at twenty-hundred hours and I will bring them to you."

The man across from him looked at the photo and nodded vaguely. Then, slowly, he walked back to his gun that was on the ground and picked it up. The German tensed for a moment, but relaxed when it was placed back in it's holster. "I'll see you there," Alfred said.

When Ludwig got back, he was told that in two days they'd be heading back to Germany and congratulated for their efforts in the war. They'd finally be able to go home.

* * *

><p>Today they were going to see flowers.<p>

Gilbert and Ludwig filled up the back of the cab, the albino looking out the window and blonde staring nowhere in particular while twiddling his thumbs. In the passenger seat was Francis, who rambled away about the city of a hundred spires, Rouen, and it's places of interest, rich history and beautiful gardens. The last of the three must have been the subject most spoken of though, since it just happened that they were going to visit Rouen's Botanical Gardens, one of the most acclaimed gardens in northern France. This time of year around there were hundreds of flowers springing out of the ground, the hanging pots that dropped from the top of foyers dripping water, and the Gothic main building accommodating hosts of crawling vines on it's outer walls. The air was also easier to breath there, so Francis said, which Ludwig was looking forward to.

So, though there was no chance of Ludwig laying his eyes upon the beauty that greeted him as they exited the cab to the garden's gates, he could feel the soothing presence of shimmering ponds and hear the gentle breeze through the grasses and trees that spotted the campus. It was truly relaxing, the birds singing sweetly in the foliage. And Francis by his side, the Frenchman's hand touching his arm and leading them through the gate after paying the toll.

Within a matter of a couple minutes of the three walking down the small pebble paths and twisting around willow trees and ponds, Gilbert took his leave, obviously bored of the plants. "Will it be alright if I look around inside that building?" He asked, hesitant at the aspect of leaving his brother but desperately wanting to do something exciting all the same.

"Don't be long," Francis replied, only chuckling a bit. It was painfully obvious, how bored Gilbert had been, but it was curious, how he didn't make it public by saying it out loud. The albino seemed like the kind of person that would. What had muted him, exactly? The fact that Ludwig looked like he was truly enjoying himself of course, but Francis wouldn't be able to figure that out himself just then. So they instead found a nice bench to sit at near a table where an elderly pair played chess under the sun and took in the warm light themselves. It was quiet at first, which was strangely alright, since there wasn't any feeling to cover nature's sounds with words at that moment. It was Ludwig who first brought up conversation, namely about the trip around France that Francis said he'd taken with his parents as a child. However, talk of his parents soon melted into words about the war, until the German finally brought up what had been picking at his curiosity this whole time.

'If you don't mind he asking," he said, eyes casted out into the ripples of flower-flecked bushes before them. "How did you recognize me?"

At this Francis smiled and looked down, crossing his legs. There was a silence as he paused to gather his words, before, "how could I forget you? Your saved me, after all. That is not something I would not remember." Looking curiously over at Ludwig, he added, "how did you recognize _me_ is what should be the question." It was said lightly, but the words were genuine.

"Well," Ludwig began, and he actually leaned back and turned pinkish as he thought. "I didn't save many people. I suppose I remember the ones I did, and I try to forget the rest." His last words were said darkly, his tone not fitting in the sunny place they sat in. Francis looked harder at the veteran that sat next to him, trying to think of words to say.

"There was a bathroom connected to the bedroom," he said, flipping his palm over in his hand. "I went inside it after the soldiers left and shut the door behind me, and then turned on all the faucets. Busted the pipes underneath the sink, so the fire could not get inside. So when the fire was finally put out by the rain, I left the house and went into the street. There was nobody."

The German winced, trying to remember the room. He didn't remember any other door except the closet ones. They were so large, and as he looked back, in his memory they were pictured as dark and enormous, foreboding. There was no other door. "I'm so sorry," he muttered, and put a hand over his face to rub his eyes. "I didn't see her there. I didn't mean to... it wasn't intentional."

He turned towards Francis as he felt a hand rest on his shoulder, giving him a small squeeze. The Frenchman whispered something that he couldn't hear clearly before saying, "the gun was in both of our hands, Ludwig. I forgive you." The hand slipped off his shoulder and rested between them, on the wood of the bench. Then, with a small hum, "if you don't mind me asking, what is it like? Being blind?"

All around them buzzed the murmur of chatter, the footfalls of visitors that walked the gardens. 'Échec et mat' was heard at the chess table, and after a moment, a chess piece was knocked off the board. The king was saved. Birds fluttered about, hopping on the ground and picking at bread crumbs thrown about them, and the wind dropped to a balmy breeze. Summer was here, and with that came new life, like the newborn birds up in the trees crying for their mothers, the fluffy young bunnies twitching their tails in the bushes. Ludwig dropped his hand on the bench as well, and pulled it back quickly when it landed on Francis'. But after recovering from a small cough issued to ward off any presence of awkwardness, he made his answer.

"Something like seeing."

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><p><strong>Translations;<br>**Échec et mat is French for 'check-mate'.

**Ending comments;** These chapters are getting way shorter. ANYWAYS. As I said in my update to Smile, Darling, I really don't have any good excuses for taking this long to keep writing, so I'm sorry to whoever may be reading. Shame on me :C. Continuing with what I was saying about length, this chapter is just for the sake of transition and establishment, so from here on out things will get a bit more interesting, including, but not limited to, the introduction of more characters in future updates.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thank you 1silentmouse** and **Canaries** for your reviews! You have no idea how happy they make me, haha.

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><p><em>The woods were deafeningly silent, <em>towering and casting sepulchral shapes down on the path he stood in. An owl that was hunched over on one of the branches above him hooted and fluttered off towards the Allied encampment. Ludwig, however, had no ideas of flight on his mind, for his main concern was keeping Alys and Heidi warm. It was astonishing, how that indeed was his main concern, despite all of the shrieking warnings that he should've heeded. No night birds sent calls to the wind, no day-fearing creatures trotted about the brush. The woods were silent, and the photo on the tree was gone. Perhaps it had fallen, one would suggest, but that wouldn't have explain the carving of _stay here_ right where the picture had been, written with a nail that was now stabbed into the crumbling bark.

One person alone in those woods would not make it out unchanged. There was a sense of absence under the leaves, near trees whose trunks at night were as pale as sails against a twilight sea. Every vibrant color that had excised under the sun's dance were now painted into cinematic blacks, whites, and grays. The words on the tree were black and bled black sap, and the quiet that Ludwig heard that night, that moment, may have been the loudest thing he'd ever heard in his life.

"Ludwig," Alys said, eyes now on the German. She and Heidi both had the man's jacket about them, causing a strange clash between the uniform and two women, tired and groggy. The older woman's voice that had cut through the silence was a bit high-pitched, carrying an edge of uncertainty with it. "Will he come? It is such a strange thing to do, writing that and vanishing. I do not understand."

Neither did Ludwig. However, he only turned to look at her and didn't reply. His eyes fell over the two figures that sat at the trunk of the tree, but his thoughts were on something else. There was a rhythmic beat not too far from them, the steady footfalls of a pair of men, heading their way. The man grew rigid and pressed a finger firmly to his lips. Heidi tucked her head at the pit of Alys' arm, and even Alys, bravest of the three, stopped breathing for but a moment. For several seconds they waited, hearing the faint steps growing closer and closer, until Ludwig hunched over and lead them to the overhang of a tree not ten feet away from the other's bleeding trunk. From there the German fully crouched down with the other two, making use of the darkness, and paused in listening.

"-don't see anythin'." A voice said, just coming into hearing range.

"It has gotta be around here somewhere! Look for the message. The message." The second man was considerably louder, a familiar voice. It was Jones. However, he sounded nearly desperate, his voice first loud before climatically dropping to a whisper: _The message._

The beam of a flashlight flitted about, the whole extent of its length visible as if caught by fog. Alfred wandered off to the side away from the tree that they were supposed to meet at, but his companion found the writing after but a minute of looking around. The man's figure stood still in front of the tree as he winced through the dark to read what the words said before turning back to Jones and saying, "the tree's here... but I don't see anyone." And then, of all things, he let out a chuckle. Like the whole thing was amusing. In the light of the flashlight, Ludwig caught a glimpse of Alfred grinning softly as well. But the smile faltered.

"We need to find em'. He's got to have the women; they couldn't find them anywhere in Namadie."

A grumble sounded out from the other man, mauling the sentence over. "No bodies, either. Not in the attic, not in the barracks, not even outside, from what I could tell."

"Ludwig," Alys whispered, putting a hand on the man's shoulder, for the German was now dead still. Namadie, that was the town that he and the other troops were at. That they were positioned at, he and his men, as good as brothers to him, though faults they had. Alfred... Alfred this man, he must have went back to his encampment and told his people after he was confronted that morning...

"You," Ludwig growled, completely ignoring Alys even when she violently shook her head, understanding what was going on. Beilschmidt stood up, trembling, half in fury and half in terror of what this meant, what he had done, and he walked unevenly towards the two Americans. "What have you done?" The two men remained silent and only stared at him with their wide eyes, blue and brown clashing with his electric sight.

"Tell me!" He yelled, and withdrew his gun, pointing it at Alfred's head. Everything was spinning, the gun felt so light, the trigger even lighter, like if he but only brushed his finger on it that it would be pulled. And then it all dawned on him.

_It's true, I assure you._

Alfred offered him an uneasy smile, and slowly lowered the hands that he had put up so abruptly before. "Please, let me explain," he said, voice strangely calm. His friend only backed up a step, his own arms still up high in the air.

_There is a town not far from here, just through these woods._

"I had to do it. You understand, don't you? You would have done the same thing, wouldn't you have?" The words were said soothingly, as if they were an attempt to soothe a lion into sedation. Ludwig's breathes now sounded like hums, as if he couldn't seem to get enough air.

_My platoon has just set base there._

He steadied his shaking hand and stepped forward, letting a feeling of finality wash over his senses. Ludwig's face broke, and it exposed the most filthy look that he had ever given anyone in his life. The morning that he asked Alfred for help, he had put his trust in him. To trust unconditionally was something that the German had never done in his life until then, and now it turned out that everything Alfred had said and promised turned out to be lies. Lies. He felt like he could never trust anyone again. "I thought you were better," he said, and he didn't meant to let his voice sound so deranged and broken, but it did. He cocked his gun.

"Stop!"

Alys broke her cover and raced between the two men, Ludwig's jacket still on her shoulders. She looked at the German, something like determination on her face, and looked back off the path where Heidi still lingered. "Please, for her, Ludwig," she whispered, pleading now. She did not want him to kill in front of the small girl; she wanted to spare Heidi of one less horror in her life, for she had already faced so many. That didn't exclude the fact that if Alfred was killed, she wouldn't be spirited off to safely, nonetheless Heidi as well. In turn, Ludwig, though still glowering at Alfred, lowered his gun hand. The American let out a breath of air, as if he'd been holding it in that whole time.

"Ludwig," Alfred said, voice now stronger even though he still looked warily at the gun in the other's hand. "You can go. The least I can do is not turn you in. You're... a good man, and you did the right thing."

Beilschmidt backed up and pressed his back against the bleeding tree. This wasn't happening. He looked down at his hand, uncocked his gun, and watched it fall. Just like the gun had felt, he felt light, so fragile and susceptible to being blown away if the winds grew too strong. The palm of his hand was red, holding the marks of the gun's shape against his skin. He didn't want the American's meaningless consolations, words from an untruthful mouth. What was going to happen now? All of his brothers were now either killed or being shipped off as war prisoners, and it was his fault. They were so close to heading back to Germany, just a stone's throw away from home and family. That was all gone now. They'd been so close.

He let his back slip down the tree trunk, still staring at his palm, watching the marks fade away. The gun sat at his feet, dulled and lightless in the dark of the woods. Alys stepped towards Ludwig and gazed down on him, as if her eyes had now fallen over a stranger. "Thank you."

The roar was heard first, like a dozen dragons shouting under the forest and shaking the tree roots. And then there was light. It was soft at first, only a suggestion that made the leaves a little clearer. However, edged towards them like a line of orange-clad warriors on flaming steeds, the infernal-coloured light charged at them and brought in an onslaught of heat and ash. Through the sudden wind that hovered down from the canopies and through the tree trunks their hair blew, Alfred smiling, Alys looking stunned, and Ludwig, terrorized. Heidi let out a shout, one that sounded terrible and afraid, before gathering her long skirts into her palms and leaping away like a foal through the underbrush.

"They must have gotten everyone out," Alfred said, the sunset-like hue of colors making his deep blue eyes seem like lit orbs of the sea, piercing through the thickest fogs that nestled over the ocean. "Can't have all of that equipment stay there. We had to get rid of it all."

"Wow," was all that his friend said, staring at awe in the direction of the explosion. "I wonder what they used 'ta blow the place up?"

Alys didn't even seem to realize that Heidi had gone. She was close to Alfred now, staring at all of the swirling colors with the other two. A sudden spring of gunfire echoed around, but it was distorted between the echoes of the explosion that still rang in their ears and a new sound, the one of the woods burning after they caught some of the fire. Ludwig was thoroughly alarmed now, but his legs didn't seem to move. Alfred, however, looked much more energetic, happy in some twisted way. He stepped towards the German and said in a low voice, trying to gather his composure and remain serious, "I said leave. The runners will be getting shot down by now, and they can't find you here."

Ludwig shook his head.

"Go!"

Electric blue eyes looked at Alys, who was still staring at the direction of the flames. The other man had moved closer to her and slipped Ludwig's jacket off her, before he handed it to the German soldier, along with his gun, though the latter was handed over more carefully. "Wasn't there another lady?"

The same pair of bright blue eyes now moved again, but this time behind the American's shoulder into the distance. There, in the heat and oncoming flames that were surely making their way towards them, was a darkened figure in uniform half-way behind a tree. It was undeniable, who the person was. The long overcoat, cuffs turned back, hair in disorder and sticking up in the front. And then the man was gone, running away from the gunfire.

Ludwig slipped his jacket on, shoved his gun in it's holster, and sunk into the parts of the woods that ran right along the fire, where Heidi had gone.

_"it's too bad you didn't die, would have spared me from killing you myself. _

_well, i take that back._

_We'll have a nice time together, now, won't we Luddie? _

_To keep those eyes from looking so sad._

_**Open your eyes.**_

**THERE, THERE, IT'S OKAY. YOU ONLY DESERVED IT.**"

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><p>Ludwig felt his eyes fly open, still sweating as the nightmare and its echoing voices seared through him. His breaths were fast, but after feeling the bed underneath him, the blankets atop his warmed body, he lets the darkness sedate his strung nerves. A hand flew to the corners of his sheets and to pull them over. Then he sat on the corner of his bed and covers his face with his hands. It was so long ago, but his eyes still burned. He could still vividly see the words carved in the bark, the starkness of black and orange of that night. Was it possible to call him blind if he could still recall how the trees looked as crumbled down, remember how Heidi's long skirts fluttered and disappeared into the brush? Yes, now everything was reduced to a touch of the breeze, a whisper in his ears, but Ludwig had always felt aimless and wandering after the day came when his eyes proved useless. The words that Alfred had scribbled in the trunk, <em>stay here<em>, was a command that even now the German followed. All of the tree trunks were still there, the silence, and then the bright orange light. Alys, awed by the roar of war's call, and Heidi, leaping fawn-like into the only black that was left to get away from it. Ludwig was still in the woods, stuck in the wasteland of his past.

Funny, how it seemed exactly the opposite in those few hours he spent together with Francis. Ludwig could have sworn that he could hear the whispers of the tree above them, taste the wind that rustled the grass, feel the liquid words that spilled from the Frenchman's tongue warm up his insides like steaming cocoa on a German's winter night.

A yawn softly lilted from where Gilbert slept, which caused Ludwig to perk up and lower his hands from his face. "A little early to be up, isn't it?" he said, but the albino shrugged it off and loudly tossed his blankets off as well. Another yawn, and then footsteps towards the window. "Early day today. Francis is going to drop by, something about the church." Ludwig could picture the tiny shrug his brother would give after his words, and then stood, stretched himself, before walking off to get prepared for the day. It turned out that what Francis had in store for them was quite a surprise as well.

His arrival was marked by a knock on the door, which Gilbert quickly responded to by greeting Francis and welcoming him inside. Ludwig was still picking away at his breakfast at the small table near the window, but he offered a small smile and an even smaller "hello" before shoving more food into his mouth. He could feel when the Frenchman took a quick seat next to him, a light impact as he folded his hands on top of the table, and that smile that heated him up even when he couldn't see it. "I may as well tell you two now, just in case you'd rather not."

Gilbert also took a seat and cleared his throat a bit. "Rather not, um, what?"

Ludwig picked away still.

"Well, you see, I do not have a car, and the church of Nicasius church is in the countryside. No trains go past, and buses rarely." He paused, and the blind blonde did as well, pulling his hands away from his nearly emptied breakfast place. "'owever, a friend of mine that came visiting Paris not too long ago offered to give us free transportation to wherever we need to go."

Ludwig felt the satisfied feeling of his filled belly dissipate into an uncomfortable ache. His brother, however, took to the news differently, and said, "well, that's awesome! We don't mind at all; the more people the merrier."

"Two people, actually," Francis remarked. "Antonio and Lovino. Antonio is pleasant, but I can't say the same for my brother." After this he chuckled softly, perhaps a bit fondly, but the latter didn't cheer Ludwig up. Gilbert already sounded as happy as a lark though, his words brightening up as he spoke and swiveled around the table to collect the remaining plate. He even gave Aster a scratch on the jaw, who responded immediately by shoving his nose into the albino's hand. As the Frenchman and his brother engaged in conversation, mostly about questions of the two new companions they'd meet later that day, Ludwig only leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee leisurely. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. Gilbert seemed keen enough to the idea of more company, and at this point, Ludwig didn't really mind it either. As long as Francis continued talking to him, making him feel like he was actually worth something.

So, to the cafe they went once again. Since Aster didn't get to go to the park with them, they took the cheerful dog with them to meet the others. It was with his dog that Ludwig learned his first little fact about the Spaniard that shot off immediate calls of greeting as soon as he entered the premises, mainly to Francis, but eventually to him and his brother as well; Aster ran to Antonio as soon as he walked in. The happy-sounding man was obviously attracted a fair amount of animals to him, which hinted at a friendly spirit. Ironic, how Lovino was the next to walk in, very much an animal that lurked near him as well - his voice was more of a growl than anything, and though Ludwig wouldn't see him, he could feel the agitation the man emitted.

"I am here in this damn country for Feliciano, not to see _you_."

"J'aime aussi, Lovino."

Ludwig couldn't directly point out the exact moment when it happened, but it was near the end of their stay at the cafe. By that time Gilbert and Antonio were getting along like old friends reminiscing on school time pranks, Francis had resumed his customary place near the German, and Lovino had excused himself from all conversation with a handy cigarette that stung bitter in his nose. Though it seemed as if the two brothers, Lovino and Francis, didn't get along very well, they seemed to back off a bit from each other, the Italian from his sarcastic implications and the Frenchman with his attempts at trying to actually converse, after Lovino touched upon the subject of Feliciano once again.

"You were not always so cold," Francis said almost jokingly, trying to lure some words from his brother, and the other replied back with a curt, "maybe I'd just be the happiest person, eh? If Feli were here to pester me along with you."

And just like that all words between them evaporated. Ludwig could hear the man beside him swallow down his coffee cup and the other scoot his chair away with a loud drag against the floor tiles. He could tell when topics roll over to something more sensitive, and if Ludwig hit his mark, what was just touched upon was as good as a bullet to the head for the both of them. So he remained quiet and smoothed over Aster's ears, who had padded over and plopped down next to him almost as soon as he'd left to greet the strangers. All the while he felt a mix of anger and pity settle in his stomach because of the treatment that Francis was getting.

It didn't seem fair, especially to someone so kind and accepting, someone that reminded him of the old home of his childhood and its fluttering wafts of red apples ticking his nose, how they dripped morning dew in his hair and made his golden head glitter, tricking him into thinking that it was going to rain. But it stayed balmy during the summers, and the sunny warmth clouded his mind with the memoirs of laying in the tall grass with the girl next door, her ember eyes fleeting and never truly looking into his, but rather melting into a beautiful nostalgia as soon as they were met by the lofty canvases of wispy clouds and fluffy buttercup cakes. And somehow, when Gilbert jabbed at him that the girl with the pretty dresses across the way was actually a boy with a particularly eccentric grandfather, it somehow didn't bother him. Though now he was more faint in his mind than ever before, particularly after that dreadful hit in the head that earned him a case of amnesia, he could still remember the slightness of his neighbor's face, the wideness of his eyes, or more often than naught how they shut at the slightest morning's breeze. He still continued to admire him more than anything, as much as a child could admire another, even after he moved far away.

After having so wholeheartedly seeking another's presence, company, and attention, despite what one may be "equipped with", it didn't take him as aback as it should have when the idea was caught in the knotted, webbing recollections in his mind that he was not wrong to want to have Francis, and for Francis to take him in return. Was it bad to want something as basic as the affection of another?

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><p>As soon as they edged near their hotel room door they could hear the faint ring of the phone inside. Gilbert almost jumped as soon as the noise got into hearing range and dived for the doorknob while Ludwig and Francis took slower getting there, as they didn't want to trip and crash into the floor as soon as they entered like the Prussian did.<p>

"I hope that you liked them?" Francis said, and Ludwig felt Aster brush past a leg into the room's hall. As it was the polite thing to do, rather than talk to the Frenchman while facing into the room, he turned to him and placed a hand on the door frame.

"Yes," he said. "They both seem nice."

A hand dropped into his pocket when Francis chuckled darkly, more out of nervousness than anything. "Yes, Antonio is," he sighed, and the creak Ludwig heard told him that the other man leaned himself on the other door frame. "Though my brother Lovino, he is rather... unforgiving." The silence that followed was an expectant one, and for once the blonde didn't bother to listen to the avid conversation Gilbert was having with none other than Elizabeta, as who else would be calling at this hour?

"What do you mean?"

"The reason," he began, "him and Antonio came here was to visit a town. It is actually rather near your church. Our brother, Feliciano, passed away there, and it has been a few years since we've visited, so this year we were going to go back." Ludwig didn't recall this being Francis' explanation for Antonio and Lovino happening to be in Paris. However, he didn't press the matter by asking why he didn't tell him and Gilbert before. "But, well, the reason why he was there was because I turned him away from staying at my home with me while he visited."

"Did he come intending to visit you?" Ludwig asked carefully, not wanting to nose into business that wasn't his.

"Yes," the man said, and he cleared his throat a bit. "At that time I was not very... willing, to see others. After the fire."

Ludwig nodded, not before he felt his ears heat with guilt. The Frenchman hadn't said it accusingly though, just as-a-matter-of-fact like.

"So he left to visit a friend in a small town east of here, but that was right before it was, how do you say, em, blown up. So now Lovino blames me." After a careful pause, he added more softly, "I suppose he is right."

"No," Ludwig tried, and unconsciously averted his eyes down. "It's not your fault. Not at all."

Francis only hummed a bit, and the door frame creaked once again. Then another laugh, but this time it was lighter, sending relief to the low tones. "We always seem to talk of such unpleasant things. I've been meaning to say that you haven't changed at all. As tall and handsome as before, maybe a little broader in the shoulders."

At first it was hard to see how Francis would have thought him handsome when they first saw each other, but he was completely caught off guard by the liquid voice that suddenly rang in his ears. It had switched from sad to interested in a way that he had never been talked to before, safe perhaps a few bar waitresses in Germany, but he couldn't react further after Gilbert's voice excitedly called him to get in. Hence, seeing a way out of the unexpected (not bad, but just unexpected) situation that had arisen, and taking into account his sudden fumbling thoughts of how to even reply, Ludwig only said a quick goodnight and shut the door behind him as soon as he walked into the room, leaving the Frenchman standing thoughtfully in the hallway.

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><p>WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I CAN'T EVEN TELL YOU HOW HAPPY I AM THAT I GOT THIS DONE TONIGHT. SO. HAPPY. Okay time to move onto ending stuff.<p>

But really guys, it's been about time.

**Translations;**  
>J'aime aussi is French for "love you as well".<p>

**Ending comments; **As said before, IT'S ABOUT TIME. I'm sorry if my writing has kind of slacked, but I haven't been writing at all between the time that I updated Smile, Darling and pretty much tonight, save working on a few other fics on my Livejournal. Finally got that Francis we all know a little more out there in the end, and hopefully that'll continue, eh? Also, if you're wondering, the dialogue centered in the middle at the end of his flashback is further in the future of the fore-story that has been running. However, since it was a nightmare rather than just a separate story that I've been putting in the beginning of each chapter, I decided to throw that in, since, you know. SPOILERS when that was said, yeah, horrible shit was going down. Hence, thrown into the nightmare. Hope that makes sense.

Anyways.

Comments are much appreciated! They're literally the only things that stop me from crying myself to sleep at night and giving up on everything for a while after working really hard on a piece, so yeah! On that happy note, hope you enjoyed the new installation.

By the way, GO AND WATCH THE AVENGERS. It was so good I don't even. All of the Steve/Tony feels, all of them.


	6. Chapter 6

**1silentmouse**, **yiangillium**, and **Ferrro**, thanks for the reviews! They really mean a lot to me and keep moving me forward, so thank you a hundred times over.

**1silentmouse, **shit, let's hope so, haha. And bro, you have no idea how happy I am whenever I see you review.  
><strong>yiangillium, <strong>ah, thank you so much! Much appreciated.  
><strong>Ferrro, <strong>_as awesome as the Avengers_. As. Awesome. As. The. Avengers. That is such a compliment to me that you wouldn't even believe how much of a compliment that is to me. But, anyways, thanks for the review, and welcome to the strange side of FF! (Same goes for **yiangillium**!) Hope I accommodate you well, since, er, I often have that feeling that I scare people off... But yeah, thanks!

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><p><em>The woods soon gave out<em> to the grassy meadows and picturesque countryside where the orange hue that blitzed behind him was nothing more than the illusion of an oncoming dawn, and the rest was a sun-sunk shipwreck setting on the solace of midnight. The grasses teemed with closed purple-blue buds that were washed down by the waning moon, now a gash that peered out from narrow black slits of the night's lofty, fluffed quilts of clouds, and in the chilling cool Ludwig ran on, following a shape that was far off but inching closer as each half hour passed. Forever out of his reach the galloping girl seemed, her legs tossing skirts about the brush in a gauche waltz with the night owls and ringing shots that still echoed in their ears, though distant they now were from their reach.

What'd just happened seemed like a nightmarish blur, unreal, as he ran from the transcending artificial sunrise behind him and instead ran on in the light of the crescent in the celestial fields that showered above him. Heidi was now brutally shoved to the very fronts of his war-waging mind, in the front lines, pushing the mysterious, fire-surrounded figure and Alfred's betrayal behind. Somehow, Ludwig could almost blissfully concentrate on matters that were on hand rather than the recent past, which gave him a clear mind to focus on which slot of wood the runner girl had gone through now, and which direction she went.

It wasn't foggy at all, but rather a clear, gusty, beautiful night. However, the slight winds felt raw against Ludwig's skin, and any sense of replenishment he may have felt in the night's unearthly cool that rode the forest ebbs and currents were rubbed out by the fear and flaming terrors that had risen from the shadows. As he ran there were no comforts offered to him as the long whiskers of grass caressed his aching feet, or as the starlit moonshine waxed his skin to gleaming porcelain and hair to threads of gold shining like a kingly crown. His honeyed locks ruffled over his forehead and around his ears, protecting his skull from any dark compromises that still managed to gnaw their way in. When he reached the treeline and saw Heidi's dispersing shadow, her skirts that rode behind her like a trail of gray clouds extracted from the sky and carrying her on, he called out her name. However, unlike the more gentle calls they had been before, this one ripped out angrily.

_Why is she running? Doesn't she want help? _The air, before clear, seemed suddenly thick and inescapably suffocating. It surrounded him like a burning haze, choking him for a moment along with his building frustration and ever-clouding mind, before he pressed on.

Beilschmidt passed the trees, graced the dying leaves with his black boots. His shape fell in and out of trunk silhouettes and the sudden spurs of high-drawn brambles. "Heidi!" he yelled once again, this time his voice turning to a roar, and the girl moved ever on after a few stumbles and a look back at where the bellow had came from. Her face turned so fast that the wisps of hair visible from where he was appeared to fly, casting out longer than her locks actually were because of the dim-light shadows that laced them, and golden threads covered her face before she continued running in a less paced but more desperate manner. "_Heidi!_"

_Why did Alfred do that, and Alys, she didn't care, she didn't look at me, _his thoughts continued to say, tearing any sane ideas into ribbons. _I will never see home, there's nothing left for me there anyway. And I can't catch up to her, why won't you go slower? _

And then Heidi was gone. She was a fallen angel, displaced from her lofty pedestals and tossed into the flames of the world, stripping her any childhood graces bliss had given her. As what had embraced her, dark and burdensome hellfire, she just _fell_ into the vast emptiness of Nott's heavy linen skirts, her steed's twangy footfalls like the rain that sloshed mud on his boots as the goddess and horse rose the spires of moonshine through the canopies. Any slight given ray became burning searchlights that landed on him, screaming, accusing him guilty of a wasted life. The girl had fallen through a cloud of nothing, making her no longer visible to Ludwig, and therefore out of his reach. For a moment he kept jogging on, at this point uncoordinated and sparing a hand here and there to reach out to trunks for support along the way, until he found himself wasting away and staring in the direction where he'd last seen her.

As if in a dream, it was only one look away to his right that he saw a small yellow light and a cross peaking up from the thinning treetops. Ludwig had half the mind to just give up and continue wandering in the seemingly perpetual black that he'd been trapped in for years, that night in that forest, but instead, as if through a spontaneous _what the hell _sort of the moment, veered off his path and headed to the small building's doorway. Was there no better end of the road than a church?

Ah yes, and the road had indeed ended. Some find peace in the comforts of home, others in wind, the spin of leaves on fast-running springs or to rest in the eaves, such is the spray of waves to cool a mind once enshrined by others, not by himself. The causeway between wooden benches, strewn with books and wax droplets, was covered by a red river of a carpet that pooled at the very edge of the alter. Drenched and trailing mud across the auburn material underneath his soles, he slowly found himself converged with the foot of the shrine, where he slowly brought himself to one knee, and then two. A pair of electric eyes, bulbs meeting their last sparks, rose up to meet the crowned Lord on the cross. Though the figurine's eyes did not meet his, its face was cast down at his, one face dripping with blood turned towards one that trickled tears and rainwater. Ludwig clamped his fists and pressed them to the ground near his knees, paused his ragged exhales to intake a long breath of air. After just one glance he found that his eyes wouldn't avert up again because of the shame that pitted and stayed at the very bottom of his chest. Heidi was gone. He couldn't even save her, a little girl, in the end, because she was afraid with him. With good reason, as he was suddenly well aware of the raging unstable display he exhibited under the decrepit sky.

"What did I do wrong?" He asked lowly, his crying finished as soon as it started. _I did everything I was asked, and then more. I tried to... to do right. _"I just, I, I can't anymore."

He took in a long, shaky breath, before reaching inside the breast of his jacket and pulling out a folded picture. The burnt black edges smeared over the tips of his fingers. "It was all for you, Engel," he whispered, his thumb over the cheek of a man in the picture whose hair was long and drawn back, who's face was framed by high cheek bones and lower jaw shaded by youthful fuzz. Though his eyes were painted an ashen grey, Ludwig swore that the pale blue orbs he'd once seen pierced him now. Then, he slipped his left hand into his jacket and gripped around a gun's cold metal before pulling it away to greet the cool air. His heart, it hurt so much, its beats like constant pounds on a door that wasn't meant to be opened. Ludwig didn't want to feel all of this suffering, despair, the guilt that came with breathing.

Was there no better end of the road than a church?

"Please forgive me," and then the room dropped into a very sweet peace after the gunshot, ringing with swans on a lake, tulips spinning down about winding roots, the laughter of someone he dreamed to hear laugh, sing, a person clutched so tightly in his palm. Ludwig sucked in a breath through gritted teeth, fell forward on his front, and felt his head turn to the side to see an angel standing on the side wall's doorway that had arrived to take him. His free hand managed to slip underneath him, clutching onto his gushing chest, but his shuttered and spent breaths gave himself a sense of finality before he got his wish and felt nothing but the transit of an old life's end.

* * *

><p>The rain and Ludwig were well acquainted, him knowing the sky-brought showers on his face as the river reached out in the backyard, and the rain from nuzzling into every nook and cranny of his skin. Weather was never something very interesting to him, nor was it a topic he often thought of, since it was rather trivial, but what had left a mark of presence in his life was the rain. In Germany it brought his day of darkness when he slipped on the road, hit his head, and forgot. As he was driven away with his fellow soldiers in trucks away from Rouen, the drizzle trailed after them as if trying to get one last spit at them after tending to the burning city. As it seemed to fall from the very leaves in the canopy of that night, wiping the sweat and heat from his face, as if by a caressing hand. And now the harbinger of change in his life was speaking to him in morse code through the windows, hinting that there was something to come next.<p>

The two had a rough meeting, Ludwig and the rain, the day he lost his mother from his memories. But after that they began to understand one another more, until, well. The German had come to like the rain and its carrying qualities. Who knows what might be washed up from some star-lit grounds far, far away? The shutting curtains of his past, the pillars of smoke from a city somehow still standing, the way he shivered on the red rug from the dampness of his clothes, carried along with a cold that was taking him. Francis had left for the day to get their trip organized, but the rain was there to keep him company.

Along with, in fact, his brother, Antonio, and the growling Lovino that lingered around the windows with him. Since today was something of a free day before running off to find the lost church and forgotten town, Gilbert and Antonio decided that it was the opportune time to visit Notre Dame, and if they had the time, the Eiffel Tower. After taking turns changing in the bathroom, as Antonio and Lovino were in the living quarters and reclined in a somewhat quiet manner on the sofa underneath a window spilling faint-light silver, the two brothers emerged, each huddled in coats and scarves that hugged their chins and the bottoms of their ears. All the while the albino to his left made a familiar noise of a finger tapping against a wristwatch as he said, "now, let's get going!"

Of all the places that they'd visited, Ludwig had to admit that the two places that struck him the most were both Notre Dame and the top of the Eiffel Tower, or particularly, the balcony. As they stood in the courtyard in front of the church and sat on stone benches, Lovino tossing out breadcrumbs that Antonio had brought, Ludwig could nearly feel the organ within rattle his very bones. He'd seen pictures of the Church of Our Lady, but images couldn't capture the sound that quaked out into the streets, nor could mere spires net in the Parisian wind that tugged them on to the Eiffel tower, where it roared around them in the balcony and caused his scarf to flap about his neck. Gilbert slipped on a puddle on the second floor and grumbled about the rain, and Antonio murmured a faint agreement to his dislike towards the weather, but Ludwig was so immersed into a world of sudden sound and feeling that he loved it. Even Aster, seemingly unaffected by the weather, happy lolled his tongue and licked Ludwig's hands. Overall, the only one who had any true qualms of their little outing was Lovino, who seemed to almost enjoy cursing the wind, the loudness of the shaking cathedral, and how the line for the lifts were moving too slowly.

However, it wasn't until later when one of the best moments of Ludwig's life occurred.

Gilbert walked out of the sidewalk payphone to meet the other four, where he'd left them waiting for a solid five minutes. After having had Gilbert and Antonio chattering away for most of the day, the Spaniard somehow managed to avoid what would have been the first silence of the day by shooting the breeze with Ludwig about practically nothing. Somehow, his charismatic fluency managed to occupy them though, until Gilbert returned and announced that they were to go ahead and eat lunch. "There's this nice place we passed, Le Buisson Ardent, that we can grab some food at. Sheesh, I'm _starved_."

"That's fine with me," Ludwig replied, followed by a stream of concurrence from Antonio, and silence from Lovino, which by now was expected from him. So, with Aster leading the way, they walked down the sprinkling streets with minimal delay until making it to the restaurant, which instantly greeted Ludwig with a wave of comforting atmosphere and warm air, as well as a voice that was instantly recognizable.

"Hello!"

And then Gilbert audibly mumbled happily under the pressure of a woman's lips as Ludwig visibly beamed, smiling from ear to ear. Not a moment after her heels clicked against the floors until the blonde was met by a warm embrace and two kisses on either side of his face. "Elizabeta!" Ludwig stuttered in greeted, still pleasantly surprised by her sudden appearance. With that he received another quicker hug before she pulled away and said, "it's not only me, someone else came as well."

Perhaps that was what caused the sudden quietness on Gilbert's part. While Ludwig uttered an interested "really?", irritation was nearly radiating off of his brother. Another pair of shoes clicked forward in the strides of a man before an unfamiliar voice followed. "Hallo. I am Roderich Edelstein."

"Roddie," Gilbert growled. Elizabeta shuffled over to stand near his brother, probably to hold onto his arm.

Roderich Edelstein was a familiar name to Ludwig, though he'd never met him before, despite the fact that his brother had. Elizabeta was perhaps most known for having gotten married young in Austria to a famous doctor, a prodigy, who wasn't much older than her, before through a year of turmoil and overall impossibility to deal with the situation they were both thrown into, they divorced. Since such things were of course looked down upon, people grew to have a general distaste for her flighty ways as Doctor Edelstein went on to become immensely successful neuroscientist and surgeon. Everyone that looked her way wondered why she wanted to leave the marriage as much as he did, with him turning himself into such a renown figure of fame, knowledge and wealth, but she felt like she never had any reason to explain. Elizabeta and Roderich were close, but seemingly never close enough. So, all of this gave Ludwig all the more reason to wonder why the doctor and Elizabeta had traveled to meet them.

"I am Ludwig, nice to meet you," the blonde said, and offered his hand to have a curt shake of hands before they parted and Gilbert cut in as the Austrian introduced himself to the others.

"Lizzy, what the _hell_ is he doing here?"

"Gilbert," she cooed teasingly. "Are you not happy to see me?"

What followed was a strained "no", and the touch of another kiss. As if that was the price to explain, the Hungarian began, Ludwig feeling her beaming eyes on him the entire time.

"Roderich and his colleagues in Germany have been trying to find ways to help the men who came back injured from the war, especially when it was concerning head injuries, for _years_ since it ended. And one of the injuries they have learned to treat are things called head concussions, especially when they cause amnesia, or blindness." A hand squeezed his arm. "You might be able to see again! He'll explain the procedure tomorrow when we're all rested, but if we're lucky, it'll happen very soon."

That moment wasn't anything like when Ludwig had met Francis again after so long in the cafe. No, this was something different. A stillness in the room, swarming with the excitement that Elizabeta exuded, Gilbert's shock, and Ludwig's, well. Shock. Disbelief. Utter, complete, crazy joyousness that rose from his throat as it choked out nothing, some insane feeling of wanting to take Elizabeta in his arms and spin her around, agree with Antonio, who was the first to speak with a "that's... wow!", or simply cry out of relief on Gilbert's shoulder, because the world was so dark and invisible to him until the very moment they stepped into Paris, into Rouen.

Francis. What Ludwig wouldn't give to see Francis again. The thought sprang at him, even as the whole world suddenly sprang into life around him, Gilbert patting his shoulder, Antonio congratulating him, and even Lovino and Roderich following in suit as Elizabeta squeezed tighter on his arm out of excitement. _What I wouldn't give... to see Francis again. _His blue eyes, his sun-touched hair, the easy-going smile that introduced himself within the confines of a picture hung on a wall before he tore it off and met his troop downstairs, keeping it under his shirt and near his heart at all times. Through the bounds of shock and happiness Ludwig felt very shameful at the first collected thought that hit him, and the shameless giddiness that followed after it. What he wouldn't give to see Francis again.

Though he didn't literally _see_ him, the next time they met was that night in front of the hotel, where Elizabeta and Roderich had also gotten rooms. The whole crowd was potpourri of cheerful voices all the way back, from the metro ride to the leisurely walk down the pouring streets, enjoying the moment no matter how often Lovino grumbled at how his new shoes were now filled with water. Antonio, always first to utter a word, announced the news to the Parisian first, who in turn said his thoughtless praises in French before reverting back to English and holding Ludwig's shoulder, saying congratulatory words that just wouldn't take the German's mind off of how he wanted to draw the other closer. Roderich was also given a round of figurative applause as they all marveled at his ability to revert Ludwig's blindness, and his overall willingness to do it for an army veteran, Ludwig in specific. Though he didn't know it himself, Ludwig had somehow fallen into everyone's hearts.

Gilbert was the first one to call it a night, as everyone had a full day to look forward to tomorrow, along with being privately concerned about how all the excitement was for his brother, who nowadays got easily drained from such things. Elizabeta, of course, more verbally expressed the same concerns, which made Ludwig blush, being treated like he was a child in front of so many. Antonio nodded and admired the strength of the blonde in a verbal manner as well, and surprisingly enough, Lovino did so silently too, half out of pity for the blind man and half out of overall sympathy. Roderich, though basking in his recognition as a genius, did so modestly and looked carefully at Ludwig, sharing the same concerns as Gilbert and Elizabeta. Francis, however, extended his congratulations by taking him up to the balcony before they all laid the day to rest.

"After not being able to see for so long," Francis said, leaning over the roof railing, "it must be strange to see again." His hair was out of its usual ponytail, now rather moving gently about his face as the wind pushed it to and fro. The street commotion down below made the city seem all the more vibrant and alive, as did its many lights that splashed the sides of the building and tickled the sky. "Like waking up from a dream, no?"

Ludwig's eyes were closed against the lapping breeze, still cold from the rain that had by now stopped falling. He and Francis, they'd gone through the hurricane together, its eye and all, and now they were finally rewarded with the calm after the storm's end: A gentle tug of wind on the roof of Paris, floating strands of hair touching the heavens above, feeling their hands very slowly, very quietly thread together, hidden from the world on their balcony in the sky. Carefully, as if Ludwig was a bomb to go off at the slightest movement, or a pane of glass to shatter after but a touch, Francis cautiously leaned to rest his head on the other's shoulder. After there was no reaction but a slight shiver, he closed his eyes as well, taking in the darkness.

It was funny, how carefully Ludwig craned his neck to kiss the top of Francis' head while his heart was beating so fast that it almost made his chest ache. His lips stayed there for a long time, and eventually his head moved to rest gently on the Frenchman's, who tightened his hold on his hand at the movement. The German's mind was scrambling for something to say, but it didn't seem necessary to say anything until what felt like the whole night passed. "I hope this isn't a dream."

At that, Francis chuckled, the tremor in his chest shaking at Ludwig's side. The action instantly spread a funny sort of warmth through his body. "No, no. Even a dream would be more sensible than this." And then he exhaled. "But I'm glad that it isn't a dream."

Perhaps then was the time to confess all of the love he'd had for Francis all of this time, how after each fall he'd get up, striving to maybe see him again, how he kept his picture near his heart, and how he held it the two times he almost died, praying that he'd somehow, in some impossible way, make it to Francis again. Instead, they remained silent and hung on Francis' words, even when they departed to sleep, and somehow Ludwig knew that he had all the time in the world to say what he'd kept in the dark for so long, until now.

* * *

><p><strong>Ending comments; <strong>Five points if you find the Papillon reference, haha.

Well, the end sort of jumped on me when I was writing it. Honest to god I was hoping to start having them do cute things later on in the story once they talk more and all, but it just happened oh my god I'm sorry fjdaskf;. But other than that, yay, I finally got something posted! I'll be sure to start working on the new chapter for Smile, Darling next, if any of you read that one as well. Hope you enjoy!

Each time you review a clinically depressed superhero is saved.


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